A început ploaia/It started raining is the first feature documentary about forced evictions against Roma people in Bucharest, Romania. The film document the full history of these evictions, as well as showing the powerful resistance enacted by a community of Roma who dwelt on the street for two years in order to fight for their right to housing. The documentary can be watched and downloaded for free below and on Vimeo. It is offered as a political tool to elicit debates and solidarity around the fight for the right to housing worldwide.

Romania and UK, 2017English, Hungarian, Spanish and Italian subtitles (activated by pressing CC on the player).

RESEARCH

The documentary is the result of more than two years of video-ethnographic work around forced evictions against Roma people in Bucharest, Romania. The director, Dr Michele Lancione, is an urban ethnographer working at the Urban Institute, University of Sheffield (UK). If at first his involvement with the Vulturilor 50 community was solely of activist nature, with the passing of time he started to work with them (and the cohort of activists involved in the resistance) on a more profound basis, sharing means and ideas. This eventually led to the production of activist-oriented video and, then, to the realisation of the documentary. Michele is part of the grassroots organisation FCDL (Common Front for the Right to Housing), which fights alongside evicted communities in Bucharest and elsewhere in Romania.

The aim of A început ploaia is twofold. On the one hand, also through the activist and participatory approach foregrounding it, the documentary aims to support the struggle for the right to the city that Roma people are bringing to the fore in Bucharest. On the other hand, the film shows how it may be possible to mix academic fieldwork, activist-oriented work and visual methods to create space for empowering experiences and meaningful exchange. For this reason Michele has also founded A Community Productions, a company which aims to become an important collector of meaningful and politically-charged ethnographic documentaries in the years to come.

Lived and experienced by the people of Vulturilor 50 · Written, researched and directed by Michele Lancione · Produced by A Community Productions · Editing and motion graphics by Eleonora Mignoli · Graphic Design by Anouvong southiphong · Colour Grading by Jack Strange · Music Licensing by Francesco Menegat · Sound mix By Alessandro Ciani · Photo of the eviction by Adrian Catu · Translations from Romanian by Alina Huzui-Stoiculescu